Main navigation

Stop wasting your food!

This is something I’ve never understood. If you’re going to buy food, why throw it away? If you go out to a restaurant, why not take leftovers home?

Stop wasting your food. For those of us who need to make every dollar count, food spending is critical. Why? We all gotta eat.

But that doesn’t mean load up the fridge and then let half your food go rotten. That’s just silly. Yet people do it anyway.

That’s like saying “Well I gotta pay the electric bill so I might as well just leave these lights on all the time”. And who does that? No one. “I gotta pay the water bill so I’m just gonna turn this faucet on and let it run until I feel like cutting it off.” Who does that? Once again. No one.

So why do people think it’s ok to do the same with food?

According to this article, Americans throw away 16% of the food they buy. Households across the country throw out over $600 dollars worth of food every year and only 42% feel that it’s a “major source of wasted money”.

One in eight Americans go hungry. Twenty percent are children. That means that chances are you know someone who is part of a food-insecure household.

If you’re buying too much food anyway, then maybe you should feed someone that you think might be hungry. Why not? It’s better than being wasteful. Or donate canned or other long shelf-life items to food pantries if you’re not going to use them.

Some tips on how to stop wasting your food

– Before going to the store, take an inventory of what you have and what might be in danger of spoiling. Eat/cook it first or make sure to pick something up that will help you utilize those items quickly. If your bread is going stale, for instance, grab things to make samiches. Got potatoes fixin’ to go south? Bake them off or mash them.

– Quit eating junk food. It’s bad for you and a waste of your hard-earned money. Chips, candy, and the like aren’t providing the nutrients that other foods will. If you don’t need it, then don’t buy it. Sure, eating unhealthy may save you a $1 a day, but you’ll spend the savings plus some on healthcare in the future.

– Cut back on restaurants and fast food. Once again, unhealthy (I don’t care what the menu says) and to be honest, the food at chain restaurants is gross. It’s all pre-packaged crap, half of which just gets thrown into a microwave. Sure, there’s plenty of non-chain/fast food places out there that have delicious food, but the markup is bonkers. If you eat out, make sure to keep it infrequent and always take leftovers home. If you really aren’t in the mood to care about healthy eating then hit an all you can eat spot. Get your money’s worth. Just don’t make it a daily, or even weekly, habit.

– Put the money where it matters. Nutrient dense foods. Buy fresh fruits and veggies and eat those before opening frozen or canned products. Cook meat before it turns. It’ll stay edible for a few more days once it has been cooked. Speaking of which, many Americans could stand to cut back on meat consumption. The USDA recommends 4 oz. a day and I know I’m not the only one guilty of eating (a lot) more than that.

– When all else fails, call me. I will come to your house, eat your food, and then leave.

Only a fool turns down free food. And like a wise man once told me: “You ain’t gotta be hungry to eat.”

Conclusion

I wouldn’t be a proper pf blogger if I didn’t remind you guys what that $600 a year turns in to in the long run. Stop wasting your food because it’s wasted money. So many people could stand to cut back on not just spending, but on consumption of unnecessary foods. We, as a society, have been ruined by things like Food Network, which places chefs and food on ridiculous pedestals. Not to mention you will undoubtedly find yourself getting hungry from watching it.

Food, above all other pieces of your budget, is about being resourceful. Modern day cuisines from around the world have their roots in peasant cookery. If these people were able to feed entire families back then on next to nothing, why can’t we do it now? I don’t care what Bobby Flay is making on his show this week, you don’t have to make the same. You think he’s going to the store and paying for all that shit? He isn’t. You, my dear reader, are paying for every morsel that goes in to your mouth and into your garbage can.

Recommended for you!

Reader Interactions

Comments

I always think I’ve got a grip on this, but most months find a too-mushy-to-peel banana or orange, or bread ends get thrown. I keep chugging away at it though, and when I compare how far I’ve come in the last 3 years or so, I’m both impressed and ashamed! It’s always toughest to manage when everyone in the home is ill with some bug or other and we throw the meal plans out of the window to cook what we can manage, but I freeze or buy cans of a lot of stuff, to keep it as low as I can. You wouldn’t drop a £10 straight in the bin, but that’s essentially what we’re doing when we don’t use up all the food we buy!

I try to buy in smaller quantities so that I have one week of food and no more. That doesn’t always happen.Sometimes I find produce that I had forgotten about or I end up making a run to the store in the middle of the week. Nothing is worse than a mid-week Walmart run!

I’m bad at this, but getting better. I’d guess that 20% of the food that I buy ends up getting wasted, mostly because it spoils. Recently I’m buying more frozen food that won’t spoil, and things like apples and bananas that will last awhile. I’m looking to donate more to charity. Maybe I should do a 1-1 donation to food banks for all of the food that I waste. If I waste $50 worth of food a month, I should donate $50.

If you want to donate food, donate money to local food kitchens instead. They can buy food at better than wholesale rates. Your $10 donation is much more efficient than $25 in donated food.

To save the most money and cut down on waste, I try to keep alot of frozen items stocked in my freezer (from sales). This way I just pull the meat and vegetables straight out of the freezer a day or two before making a meal. I also try and take inventory of my fridge half way through the week and pull everything into sight so that it’s able to be used.
Meal planning and sticking to a grocery list cuts down on spending extra money at the store and wasting any extras that weren’t necessary (pick meals with the same type of ingredients to save even more money).

I struggle with this. With a family of 4, it’s very easy to lose track of leftovers. Plus I am no longer the only one buying food in my house. I try very hard to stress the importance of leftovers in my house. I even have begun to put away uneaten food back into containers when it’s not eaten by the kids, such as strawberries and grape tomatoes, I freeze bread, etc.

I still feel like we throw away too much, leftovers are NON negotiable.